In order to market food products in USA, the manufacturers and distributors must be registered with FDA and their product labels must be FDA compliant.
FDA is responsible for assuring that foods sold in the United States are safe, wholesome and properly labeled. This applies to foods produced domestically, as well as foods from foreign countries.
FDA does not pre-approve product labels, so it is the responsibility of the food manufacturers to ensure compliance. To facilitate that, FDA has detailed comprehensive food labeling regulations. These regulations provide details on each required component of the product label such as Product Name, Type, Quantity, Manufacturers info, Serving size, Nutrition facts, Foreign language etc. The minutest details such as text type, font size, placement is detailed in the guidelines.
In 2016, FDA introduced a new Nutrition Facts Table for all packaged foods with an aim to provide the consumers with more information about the foods they eat and then make an informed decision about consuming them.
The new changes highlight the calorie and servings information along with declaration of the percentage daily values of essential nutrients. The new requirements also modified the footnote to Nutrition Facts Table explaining the meanings and importance of % Daily Values. Some nutrients have been made mandatory while others are made optional.
The new requirement also changes the serving size to what people are actually eating than what they should be eating.
Both foods manufactured as well as imported into US are required to abide by the FDA’s labelling regulations.
FDA has provided the following dates regarding compliance with above nutrition label changes:
January 1, 2020 – For manufacturers with USD 10 million or more in annual food sales
January 1, 2021 – For manufacturers with less than USD 10 million in annual food sales
Since manufacturers still have time to begin using the new and improved Nutrition Facts label, we can still see both label versions on the products in market. However, soon the adoption of new label will be mandatory for all.
The list of labeling requirements is long, and it becomes rather confusing and tiring to go through each one of them and ensure compliance. To ensure a 100% compliance, manufacturers and labelers can use LMG’s label review service. It is fast, effective and economical.
Liberty Management Group LTD is one of the leading FDA consulting groups in the USA. LMG provides assistance with FDA registrations, label compliance, and many more FDA regulations.
Namrata
FDA Regulatory Consultant
support@libertymanagement.us
Published on May 08, 2019